Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1887-03-19
BILL NYE's PASS.
With Deep Regret he Returns It To
To the Giver.
AN Affecting Letter From the Best Of
Humorists.

Sir: / enclose herewith annual pass
No. @ 035 for self and family over
your justly celebrated road during the
year 1887. / also return your photo
graph and the letters you have writ
ten me during the past five years.
Will you kindly return mine? And
so this brief and beautiful experience
is to end and each of us must 60 his
own way hereafter.
Alas!
To you this may be easy, but it
brings pang to my heart which your
gentle letter of the 1st inst. cannet
wholly alleviate.
Whenever hereafter you look upon
this tear specked pass will you not
think of me? Remember that you
have cast me from you and that / am
wandering across the bleak and wind
swept plains sadly enumerating the
ties on my way to eternity.
do not say this to reproach you,
Cor | fear that you care for another,
and so we could not be happy again
together. But, oh /! do you pause to
fully comprehend the pang it costs
me to return this pleasant-faced little
pass with its condition on the back ?
Could you see me even now, as /
write these lines, turning away ever
and anon, laying aside my trembling
pen to go and sit by the CRATE and
shudder and weep and put out the
fire with my bitter tears, your heart
would soften and you would say:
"Return, o wanderer, returnw
You do not say in your letter that
1 have been false to you or that l
have ever grown cold. You do not
charge me with infidelity or failure
to provide. You simply say that it
would be better for each to 60 his
several ways, forgetting that my sever
al ways are passing away, passing
away.
1t is all well enough for you to talk
about going your several ways. You
have every facility for doing so, but
with me it isdifferent. Several years
ago a large northwestern cyclone and
myself tried to pass each other on the
same track. When the wrecking crew
found me was in the crotch ola but
ternut tree with broken leg. Since
that time l have walked with great
difficulty, and to 60 my several ways
has been very serious matter with
me.
But | do not want you to think that
am mourning. | accept my doom
calmly, yet with slight tinge of I'M
awaiting regret.
Some time, perhaps in the middle
ofthe dark and angry night, when
the cold blasts wall through the tele-
graph wires and the crashing sleet
rushes with wild impetuous fury
against the windows of your special
car, as you lie warmly ensconced in
your voluptuous berth and hear the
pitiless winds with hoarse and croupy
means chase each other around the
Kansas hay-stacks or shrek wildly
away as they light out for their cheer.
less home in the Bad Lands, will you
not think of me as grope on blindly
through the keen and pitiless blasts
stumbling over cattle-guards, falling
into culverts and beating out my rare
young brains against your rough
right of way, will you not think o
me? | do not ask much of you, but
| do ask this as we separate forever
AS you whiz by me do not treat me
with contumely or throw crackers a
me when l have meekly turned ou
to let your naughty old train go by
1 have always spoken of you in thu
highest terms, and | hope you will d,
the same by me.
Life is short at the best, and it il
especially so for those who have t,
walk. Walking has already shorten
ed my life great deal and wouldn'
be surprised if the exposure and bun
ions of the year 1887 carried me of
leaving a gap in American literatur
that will look like a new cellar.
Should any of your engineers o
trackmen find me frozen in a cut mex
winter, when the grass gets short an,
the nights get long, will you kindl,
ask them to report the brand to you
auditor and instruct him to allow m,
family what he thinks would b
right? hate to write to you in thi
detected manner, but you cannot ur
derstand how heavy my heart is tC
day as Ipen these lines.
wish you and your beautiful roa
unmitigated success. 1t is a goo
road, for have passed over it an